1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic capacitor, and more particularly, to a multilayer ceramic capacitor which is capable of providing a high level of reliability by preventing the penetration of a plating solution and moisture.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, ceramic electronic components, for example, a capacitor, an inductor, a piezoelectric device, a varistor, or a thermistor, include a ceramic body, an inner electrode provided inside the ceramic body, and an outer electrode provided on the ceramic body to contact the inner electrode.
As one of various ceramic electronic components, a multilayer ceramic capacitor includes a plurality of laminated dielectric layers, inner electrodes interleaved with the dielectric layers, and outer electrodes electrically connected to the inner electrodes.
Multilayer ceramic capacitors are being widely used in mobile communications devices, such as laptop computers, PDAs, mobile phones and the like, due to their small size, high capacity and ease of mounting.
Recently, as electronic products have become compact and multi-functional, chip components have also tended to become compact and multi-functional. Following this trend, a multilayer ceramic capacitor is required to be smaller than ever before while having a high capacity.
As for a general method of manufacturing a multilayer ceramic capacitor, ceramic green sheets are manufactured and a conductive paste is printed on the ceramic green sheets to thereby form inner electrode layers. Tens to hundreds of such ceramic green sheets, provided with the inner electrode layers, are then laminated to thereby produce a green ceramic laminate. Thereafter, the green ceramic laminate is pressed at a high pressure and at a high temperature and subsequently cut into green chips. Thereafter, the green chip is subjected to plasticizing, sintering and polishing processes, and outer electrodes are then formed thereupon, thereby completing a multilayer ceramic capacitor.
The multilayer ceramic capacitor is used in such a state that it is mounted on a PCB. To this end, the outer electrode may be plated with nickel or tin.
If a plating solution is penetrated into the multiplayer ceramic capacitor during the plating process, the quality of the multilayer ceramic capacitor may be thereby degraded.